


my heartbeat is hesitation (but it’s just you and me)

by badacts



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: First Time, M/M, Nervousness, Sex Is Fun 2k18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:38:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13167093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: There’s no such thing as perfect compatibility when it comes to sex. Andrew figures Neil is probably the best he’s ever going to get.





	my heartbeat is hesitation (but it’s just you and me)

**Author's Note:**

> I had lots of requests for writing Andrew and Neil's first time having penetrative sex, so here it is :)

“I want to fuck you,” Andrew says.

Neil’s hand jerks so hard he draws a crooked line across his notes. They’ve been sitting in companionable silence for at least an hour, and he doesn’t think he can be blamed for not being able to come up with an answer when he’s halfway through an equation.

After a moment of ringing silence, Andrew’s face twists the closest it really gets to a sneer. He drawls, “What, you didn’t expect me to want that?”

Neil looks between his notes and Andrew several times, pointedly. It’s 3 AM and he has his last and most difficult final tomorrow morning. “If you were hoping for a more enthusiastic response, you could have tried asking at literally any other time.”

Andrew goes one of two ways – he instigates something new when they’re already having sex, or he brings it up verbally in the least sexual situation possible. For example, he may have blown Neil that first time without discussion, but he brought up fingering on the drive to a game. With Nicky, Aaron and Kevin in the car. The only saving grace had been that he said it in Russian, but Neil had still almost choked to death.

And Neil gets it, really. He knows Andrew saves the latter option for things he wants Neil to consider carefully, that might be complex for both or either of him. It’s not that Neil isn’t grateful – he just thinks it’s a little ridiculous to imply that he gets so sex-stupid he’ll say yes to anything after all this time.

Andrew is still watching him, lip curling a little. Neil leans back in his seat and looks back at his notes. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Andrew asks. He’s neither cool nor playing it well, spoiling for a fight that Neil has no interest in indulging him in. Neil understands that it’s hard to want things, to ask for them, and he’s the last person who would ever consider Andrew’s issues unimportant, but there’s no point in letting this devolve into an argument. It won’t serve them well.

It’s not the same, but he has a much better understanding of all those times Andrew told Kevin no, utterly impassive in the face of Kevin’s frustration.

“Fine,” Neil repeats, turning the page and highlighting…something. “Right now?”

“No,” Andrew says, and to his credit his voice is the same even roll as ever. It probably would have fooled Neil a few years ago. Perhaps.

“Well, you just tell me when you’re ready, then,” Neil says.

Andrew leans over and takes the highlighter from Neil’s hand, barely pausing before he throws it away over his shoulder. There’s a clatter as it lands on the linoleum in the kitchen area, probably drawing a yellow mark.

Andrew doesn’t turn to look. Satisfied he has Neil’s complete attention – like he thought he didn’t before – he says, “Don’t be an idiot.”

“Takes one to know one,” Neil replies without missing a beat. He puts his elbows on the table, heedless of his books, and leans across so he’s basically nose-to-nose with Andrew. “Hm?”

Andrew angles Neil’s face away in a silent denial of the kiss he’s asking for. His hand lingers, though, fingers to jaw, and there’s no protest when Neil kisses the rough-calloused skin of his palm.

“When you’re ready,” Neil murmurs, almost low enough to get lost. It’s the fingers down his throat, light and burning, that tell him Andrew heard.

 

* * *

 

There’s no such thing as perfect compatibility when it comes to sex. Andrew figures Neil is probably the best he’s ever going to get.

Andrew would like to put it down to a long list of factors, starting with the fact that Andrew likes to take control and Neil likes to cede it, but he knows it’s not really true. That’s part of it, but more than anything it’s that they know each other. Through skin and muscle and bone, down to the delicate inner workings of both of their brains – they know each other.

It’s still – complex. _Andrew_ is still complex, and Neil is straightforward about sex and not much else, so really it’s shocking it’s worked so well thus far.

Of course, ‘working well’ isn’t how Andrew would describe Neil’s smug face saying _you just tell me when you’re ready_ with his pupils completely blown. Neil claims he doesn’t turn into an idiot the second he’s turned on, but he’s wrong.

And yes, maybe it’s a lofty goal to hope that someone can make a completely objective decision about sex. Certainly Andrew, for all his sensibility, hasn’t ever done so with Neil, right back to the time he first jerked him off in a dorm room. Neil has never been sensible in his life, and Andrew wants him, likes his body and thinks fucking could feel good, could be pleasurable for them both –

And Neil said yes. Maybe he said it thoughtlessly, tone arch, but Andrew knows what the truth sounds like on his tongue.

It sounds like the gentle unspoken acknowledgement tangled in _when you’re ready_ , and feels like the press of Neil’s mouth to his palm. Or maybe that’s not honesty. Maybe it’s something different. For Andrew it’s sometimes hard to tell.

The Foxes scatter with the first day of winter break, though the upperclassmen hover close to Neil like they want to drag him along with them. Apparently they remember last year a little too well.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Matt asks. He’s going to New York with Dan to spend time with his mother. “I mean, it’s _Christmas_.”

“It’s just another day to me, you know that. We’ll be fine,” Neil tells him, bemused. “But have fun?”

“I’ll call you,” Matt says, patting Neil’s shoulder with a touch of desperation. “Keep your phone on, please.”

Neil assures him that he will, his expression the usual mix of gentle confusion and warmth in response to his teammates caring about him.

“They’re worried they won’t get you back in one piece,” Andrew tells him once they’re finally alone in the empty suite.

“You’d think they would realise I’ll be fine with you,” Neil replies without looking up from packing his bag. His voice is completely devoid of irony.

During summer break they roadtripped through four states, trading off driving and eating in roadside diners and sharing beds in shitty motels for no more than a night a town. Neil had been mostly at ease with the constant state of upheaval, but the longer they’d travelled the more obvious his uncertainty became.

Eight years of running shapes a person, but Neil is made to stand his ground in the core of him. Watching him come to that realisation in the passenger seat of a sports car in the middle of nowhere was more interesting than Andrew will admit.

The result is their unspoken agreement to stay in Columbia over this break. They arrive at the house after dark, the sensor light flickering on with a whine as they climb out of the car. Andrew lights a cigarette in the open air, watching the bright cloud of Neil’s breath match it as he unlocks the front door with the key on his keyring.

“Food?” Neil offers once they're inside, dropping his bag at the bottom of the stairs. “There’s probably something in the freezer.”

He pauses when he notices how close Andrew is to him, the shift of his attention whip-quick. Like always, he lets Andrew inside his guard without a twitch – other than stealing the cigarette from his mouth so they can kiss.

“You should shower,” Andrew says, after, voice coming out low.

“Should I?” The tilt of Neil’s tone, almost flirtatious, is a new development and completely untaught. It’s not like he learned it from Andrew, except perhaps in Andrew’s silent approval.

Andrew steals his cigarette back, tucking it between his lips. Neil takes that as a dismissal, taking Andrew’s bag off of his shoulder and scooping his own back up before going upstairs. Andrew stays at the open front door, listening to the sound of his footsteps overhead and then the rattle of the pipes as the shower cuts on. When he’s down to the filter he flicks the butt outside, thinking absently of Nicky’s hatred for that particular habit, and then locks the door behind him.

With the outdoors sounds shut out and the rush of water upstairs fading to white noise, Andrew is uncomfortably aware of his own heartbeat.

Upstairs Neil has dropped their bags on the bed, his sprawled open with clothes falling out. Andrew shoves it to the floor and takes its place on the blankets. They smell vaguely of the deodorant Neil uses, Andrew’s bodywash that Neil always steals, and the aftershave Neil only puts on when he wants to wind Andrew up.

The water shuts off. Andrew listens to the sounds of Neil clattering around in the bathroom half-drying himself like always. It’s hard not to feel expectant, perhaps impossible, but it’s not the worst thing.

Neil, when he appears in the doorway, has a towel tucked about his hips, the rest of his skin exposed. That level of relaxation is Andrew’s alone, and is more than half the reason they’re here and not in a hotel off some highway. The gentle swing of the door closed improves it. This is his – their – space, golden in the light of the bedside lamp, private and peaceful.

Well, as peaceful as Neil Josten can ever be. The apparently suggestive slant of Andrew’s body across the mattress, arms flung above his head, is enough to shift Neil’s expression from gently attentive to hot-verging-on-hungry.

He invites himself into Andrew’s space, rolling into his body towel and all. He’s fresh and pink-skinned from the shower and more amused than he has any right to be, no trace of concern that Andrew is fully dressed besides shoes and he’s basically bare.

It’s easy to kiss him, to get a little lost in it. He’s always aware of his limits, extremity to extremity in the physical sense, but it starts to fade from insistent to a buzz in favour of Neil’s skin, Neil’s quickening breath, Neil’s eagerness and welcome.

It’s all like snapshots of sensation, too much stimulation for Andrew to take everything in in real time. Rolling Neil underneath him and unwrapping his towel in one, to a split-second soundtrack of Neil’s low chuff of a laugh. Neil tugging at Andrew’s shirt in question and then removing it at his nod. Skin to skin, warmed through by the heat they’re generating, the prickle of sweat. Neil’s voice, encouraging, filling up the inside of Andrew’s skull.

Neil’s body gives to Andrew’s fingers without complaint. He likes it, obvious from the eager shift of his body and the rush of his murmuring voice. It’s not as though Andrew didn’t already know that – Neil is eloquent when it comes to his own pleasure, even when his body already speaks for him.

Familiarity is certainty. The uncertainty comes in the pause of Andrew kicking the rest of his clothes off, fumbling for the box of condoms in his bag. He’s a creature of instinct but time to think doesn’t usually feel quite so much like rope to hang himself.

Neil’s hand appears in front of his nose, palm-up and fingers beckoning. “Here.”

Andrew gives him a look. Neil blinks at him, big-eyed with his mouth curved up at one corner, and says, “Just figured I’m not covered in lube.”

Andrew flicks the condom at his face. He follows Neil back down onto the mattress, watching the way he bounces off the pillows, red down his chest and still smiling as he carefully tears the condom wrapper open and gives it back to Andrew to roll on.

Neil’s thighs jitter where they’re pressed against Andrew’s sides, and there’s a flash of white as he bites at his bottom lip. Andrew pauses, pressing his cleaner hand to Neil’s chest to feel the rabbiting of his heart. He says, “You’re afraid.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “I’m nervous. Being nervous doesn’t mean I don’t want to. I mean, _you_ still-”

Andrew leans down and kisses him. He’ll deny until death that it’s just to shut Neil up. Either way, it works: their position, face-to-face, means his cock slides firmly against lube-slick skin, earning Andrew a keen and fingers tangling tight in his hair.

“I want it, I want you,” Neil says against his mouth, transitioning from smart-talking brat back to turned-on livewire in a moment. “Give it to me.”

“If you say ‘put it in me’ right now,” Andrew threatens but doesn’t finish, losing his train of thought in the white-hot clutch of Neil’s body.

“Mmph,” Neil mutters, thick-voiced, biting Andrew’s shoulder so firmly he jerks. “Yeah, like that, come on.”

Andrew’s control is good, but he’s twenty-one and Neil feels…impossible, actually. He stays still and breathes through it, and at least now his racing heart feels more like it’s pounding out of the insane need to come immediately rather than anything else.

Neil seems to sense Andrew’s need for a pause: despite his characteristic impatience, he holds still and doesn’t talk for a whole minute, his fingers rubbing absently at the base of Andrew’s skull while they kiss.

Once that minute is up, Andrew feels Neil’s lips quirking against his own. He whispers, “When you’re ready,” biting down on his own humour.

He is so incredibly irritating. Andrew squares his elbows on either side of his head and draws back a little before fucking back in.

Neil’s mouth falls open, slack. “ _Oh_.”

“Oh,” Andrew says at the same time, punched out and surprising himself.

“Yeah,” Neil agrees, and bucks against him in a fierce roll, back and calves flexing. “Come on, Andrew, come on.”

It devolves pretty quickly, out of rhythm and inelegant, but Andrew doesn’t give a fuck in the face of the pleasure and by Neil’s moaning he doesn’t either. It feels good, better than, organic and honest.

“I’m not going to last,” Neil admits, and promptly scratches the hell out of Andrew’s back as he comes between them untouched.

The sharp sensation on top of everything else, and the ridiculous image of Neil biting his lip with come spattered over his belly, drives Andrew over the edge so hard and fast he whites out for a moment.

When he blinks back he has his forehead pressed to Neil’s collarbone as it rises with his rapid breathing, fingers caught in his hair. He lifts his head, Neil tilts his chin down, and they kiss for a long time, until their hearts start to slow.

“Huh,” Neil says eventually. Andrew pulls back an inch to look at him. He looks contemplative but content, eyes heavy-lidded. “Shower?”

The hot water is nice, easing the tightness in Andrew’s thighs and back. He feels like he does after a hard session in the gym, with the added bonus of post-orgasmic lassitude.

Neil’s fingers trace over his shoulders while he’s rinsing his hair, only a faint sting indicating he’s looking at the marks he left on Andrew. “Sorry.”

Andrew shrugs and pushes him under the water, swiping his soap-bubbled hands over the familiar topography of Neil’s body. Neil, quiescent, lets him but doesn’t look away from him the entire time. The force of his focus is immensely overwhelming, more so than any kind of intimacy, and Andrew withstands it only through exposure.

By unspoken agreement they go back to bed afterwards, pushing underneath the blankets to ward off the chill. They end up face-to-face, close enough that Andrew can feel the warmth of Neil’s breath but not touching. He’s naked under the covers, and Andrew’s awareness is a niggle at the back of his head. It’s not dissatisfaction – more like addiction. He would know.

“I liked that,” Neil says, perhaps not eloquent but perfectly forthright.

“I noticed,” Andrew replies, eyes closed so he only has to hear the self-satisfaction, not look at it.

“Nicky was right.”

Andrew cracks an eyelid to glare at Neil and then closes it again. He has zero interest in hearing about his cousin at this precise moment, and he knows Neil knows that.

“He said you would last two minutes maximum.”

“Fuck off,” Andrew tells him, though without much ire. It’s not like Neil didn’t come first.

“He also said that people have been doing it since the dawn of time and we’d figure it out too,” Neil continues, “It was completely unsolicited, but it turns out not everything he says is bullshit.”

“Shocking,” Andrew says boredly, despite the fact that that would be a surprise to no one except Neil, and then reaches out and pinches Neil’s mouth shut. “Be quiet.”

Neil’s brand of pillow talk has always left something to be desired. On the upside, he’s perfectly happy to shut up in favour of kissing.

 

**Author's Note:**

> come chat me up on [tumblr](http://badacts.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
